Monday, January 29, 2007

Every now and again you stumble onto a site that you figure everyone else must already know about since it's so kewl. This site, Flame Warriors, is such a site. The proprietor, an illustrator, has captured caricatures of the various types of personalities that make up the swamp we call a forum or discussion group.

This 2.0 version is really ticking me off. I've been using Firefox since it first came out, and was using Mozilla before that (and Netscape before that). But this 2.0 is the worst version yet. True, they've made it a bit fancier and I like the tab enhancements. I love that new windows can be configured to open in a new tab by default. I hate that it seems to crash hourly. When you use a browser as much as I do (as a developer) crashes get very annoying.

This new version has crashed, on estimated average, about 5 times a day now. The previous version crashed about never. At first I thought it might be caused by Firebug (it may), but I was running Firebug previously with no troubles. Oh well, still beats I.E., 7...

Oh, and why does Blogger's spell checker flag "Firefox" as a misspelled word, but not Firebug? Hmmm. Guess the honeymoon really is over.

This 2.0 version is really ticking me off. I've been using Firefox since it first came out, and was using Mozilla before that (and Netscape before that). But this 2.0 is the worst version yet. True, they've made it a bit fancier and I like the tab enhancements. I love that new windows can be configured to open in a new tab by default. I hate that it seems to crash hourly. When you use a browser as much as I do (as a developer) crashes get very annoying.

This new version has crashed, on estimated average, about 5 times a day now. The previous version crashed about never. At first I thought it might be caused by Firebug (it may), but I was running Firebug previously with no troubles. Oh well, still beats I.E., 7...

Oh, and why does Blogger's spell checker flag "Firefox" as a misspelled word, but not Firebug? Hmmm. Guess the honeymoon really is over.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

I'd say this guy Joe's just about got it right on. He's summarized "Joe's ten rules of commercial software development". How many startups did I endure before these started to become obvious. I'm sure you may have a couple of additions; I know I do. For example: "Methodology is never a substitute for damn good people", and "No, we can't do it cheaper in India".

For a person who considers himself a "conservative" I sure have some decidedly liberal views. Tale for example my enthusiasm about cars like the Prius and even the Honda Civic and Toyota Yaris, that gets terrific gas mileage. It just seems unsustainable to depend on a fuel that is, well, unsustainable.

I find this article encouraging, if indeed true. A Texas company has achieved a breakthrough in electric storage for autos through their capacitor approach. Capacitors are the little device that is charged quickly in your flash camera, and send a jolt to the flash tube thus blinding your children and capturing red-eyed devils for grandma's enjoyment.

It will be interesting to watch this unfold. It is revolutionary, and potentially a landscape shifting technology, if it is not bought and buried by a threatened corporation. (See Who killed the electric car for a decidedly liberal, yet interesting analysis of the demise of the EV1.) We're smart, just not too focused on this problem as a society: we can break our dependence on oil and we can transform our power-consumption lifestyle. But this does bring up a good question: is it ethical and wise to cut down my trees so I can use solar panels? Hmmm.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Well, after upgrading and modifying the template for this blog a bit it doesn't look tooo bad. It'll work. Cheaper than subscribing to typepad.

So who the heck am I? Well, for starters I've been developing software in some form since 1979, when my highschool purchased one of those new, fancy TRS-80 computers. That was such a smashing success they also bought a couple of Apple II's. BASICally, that started my programming career. Through college I made beer (er, rootbeer) money by developing spreadsheets and databases in Lotus 123 and dBase II and III (ah, Ashton Tate, we miss you...sort of.) As I became more and more proficient in dBase III I found that the larger systems I was developing often suffered from performance problems - both from design and simply due to overreaching the capacity and intent of dBaseIII. Enter 'C' - fast and dangerous. Just how I liked it.

Over the years I've developed extensively in C, C++, Java (a love affair matched only by my espresso machine) and C# (a warm spot in my heart too). Over the past 8 years here in Atlanta I've written IMAP, SMTP and fax servers for a unified messaging startup (RIP), wrote a very fine meta-search engine for another startup, DotPlanet (RIP) along with news spiders, stock quoting feed, portfolio account aggregation website (etc.). After DotPlanet went the path of the dodo bird I landed at another startup in the telecommunications industry - a fiber optic equipment provider. I led the team that wrote their EMS (element management system), an all Java endeavor.

For the past several years I've been consulting for McKesson, rewriting and redesigning software. For them it's been PDA applications in C#.Net using webservices to talk to a gSoap and standard IIS webservices server. Also a C# application server to translate from the diverse messages of their customers into their diverse robotic and automation back end systems. That was fun. Lots of XML and even wrote them a portable VB Scripting engine to embed that ran on Windows and Linux (under mono).

Presently I'm working on a personal finance web application, designed to help people who are seriously in debt and serious about being debt free. Tune into our friend Dave Ramsey for an insight into the massive problem our country finds itself in. Naturally, that means that lately I've been knee deep in Web 2.0 - CSS, Javascript, browser incompatibilities, etc. Hopefully I'll be able to post up some links to websites and resources that have helped.

On a personal note, check out my theology blog. I'm a former Seventh-day Adventist (a category of person SDA's hold lower than Wicca) and served for a time in pastoral ministry. In a nutshell, I studied my way right through the church like an arrow through a target. Having grown up in the church it made sense until I looked deeper and more honestly.

Since there always has to be a first post, this might as well be it. First, however, let me apologize for the potentially hideous layout and look of this blog. Blogger may have worked wonders with the tools they provide -- and all for free -- but they still don't have what I'd consider a good set of clean, professional templates. Guess it's time to modify.

Well, on with the show. Now if I can only come up with something pithy to blog about...